Changes in WAR

stargrace December 18, 2009 2 Comments

One of the great things about the holiday season, aside from the hustle and bustle of activities (typically involving malls and a lot of credit cards, and food) is that there’s a pretty great selection of festive activities to enjoy in game. Not only that, but a lot of games are offering a welcome back promotion of some sort. WoW offered me 10 free days, EQ2 has activated old accounts until the 31st of December, LotRO has a welcome back weekend currently running, and WAR also offered me 10 days to return to the game and check out the changes. WAR was one of those games that I enjoyed playing, but not enough to want to pay monthly for it. I love pvp and I enjoyed the thrill of battle, but there wasn’t enough ‘other stuff’ to keep me playing. I don’t enjoy pvp ALL of the time (I don’t enjoy any one thing ALL of the time, which is probably why I play so many games).

That being said, it’s a beautiful game, and I never disliked it. It just didn’t have enough ‘umph’ to keep me playing. I’m not above taking advantage of promotions to see changes, and of course I dragged a friend with me because everything is better when you’re playing with someone else.

It didn’t take any time at all to patch, and when I logged in the first thing I was greeted with (once I’d created a character) was a “changes since last time you have logged in” screen – which is a VERY SMART IDEA. I wish other games took note of this and implemented the same sort of feature. Some key notes based on the last time you’ve logged in that will show on the screen and remind you of all of the wonderful new features that you should be taking advantage of. Fantastic attention to detail, and I (as a player) like that.

One of the changes since I played last, is there’s a new tutorial area. In fact I was so out of the loop I didn’t have any idea there was this area, and figured that myself and my friend would have to create the same race in order to start together. Turns out, that’s not the case any more. The starter area was bustling with players, probably because of the new ‘unlimited’ trial that allows you to play Tier 1 for as long as you’d like. I play Order on Badlands, and Destruction on Gorfang. The highest character I have is level 12. I love playing healers, and my archmage, but there’s no way I would be able to just jump right back into the game knowing where I left off (it’s been months) so I created a ranged melee type character. Like every tutorial, the starter area introduces you to the game and puts you into WAR head first. Before level five you’ve already experienced your first public quest and are gaining reputation. I always enjoyed the fact that there were multiple methods of ‘leveling’ in WAR, through public quests, battlegrounds, and PvE (even if the pve was lacking at times).

It was starting to get late so I didn’t get very far, I think I logged off at level four or so, but it was fun. It was a little confusing and overwhelming trying to understand and remember all of the commands and what everything did, but that’s true for every game, and the fact that I play so many just compounds this because I have to remember commands and keys for not just a few games, but closer to 15 different games at any one time. Typically I go through and bind everything I can so it all matches one game, or I spend hours trying to figure out the basics (like hiding my UI so I can take a screen shot, or auto attacking).

I’m looking forward to continuing my adventures through WAR. Will I subscribe after my 10 days are up? Well. I haven’t decided yet. There’s a good chance I just might. It depends on my schedule though and whether or not I think I can justify the cost with work gaming + play gaming. In the mean time, I’m just going to enjoy.

BaKawk! Questing as a Chicken

stargrace August 25, 2009 0 Comments

It’s been a few months since I’ve played Warhammer, I gave it a try when it released and I enjoyed the game (much as I enjoy most games) but as time went on and my friends moved on I decided I could no longer devote $15/m worth of time to it, and crossed it off of my list of active games. I entered a contest at Bio Break last week and was pleased to find out yesterday that I’d won a few goodies for the game, and just as my contest entry said I decided to activate it (even if only for a short while).

I have a small selection of destructi0n on Gorfang and one Arch Mage on Badlands (I think?). I had to reinstall the game to my new drive, and spent a few hours patching but it was no worse then any other game. I have kept up with the updates on a very small scale, so any chances were still pretty much new to me. When I reactivated the account I qualified for 10 free days, so I’m playing through those first.

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to start over or try to pick up with one of my current characters. I’d only made it to level 11 on the zealot – I hate starting from scratch (especially since I had numerous low level characters and have played through those areas before many times). I logged in, found myself in the Inevitable City, found some new recruit quests which I promptly picked up and headed to Nordland (I believe). Surprisingly enough there was some major oRvR going on – which destruction was losing badly. We were out numbered and out maneuvered but it was still neat to mouse over the map and see 4-5 pockets of 10-25 people in battles.

I completed a few recruit quests, killed a few players – and along the way I dinged 12 which apparently crossed me into the “ack you’re too big to be here” line and I promptly turned into a chicken.

I remembered (though I’d never actually been one before) that turning into a chicken happens when you’re too high level for the pvp in the area – but I actually had no choice, my quests all required me to be in pvp areas exploring and checking on scouts. I was a little peeved that the quests required me to go to areas that I was too big for, but I decided I would just keep an eye out for mob encounters as well as pvp encounters, and try to finish the new recruit quests before moving on to a harder area.

Chickens don’t have much health, and they can’t use any of their spells. Since most of my quests were about scouting an area, I managed to complete them. I slowly remembered commands and how to play – even though I haven’t done a lot of actual casting yet, since I was a chicken the entire time.

Once my quests were completed I deleted a few other lower level ones and decided to head to Ostland, which I believe is the next quest area for my level. I picked up a few new zealot spells and made the long walk (as a chicken). I’m sure the people on the road who were walking with me were amused by my random clucking.

Will I stick with the game for any length of time? I haven’t decided but knowing my history I won’t. I’m still having a blast in EQ2 and passing time away until GU53 when achievements come out and auto mentoring. At least this gives me something to do in the mean time.

Since Mythic seems to be so good about fixing things….

stargrace October 12, 2008 6 Comments

I was reading Ogrebears site today (thank you google reader!) and came across this post which really didn’t surprise me, and it’s not the only post like this. One key aspect to ALL mmo’s is community. Some of us find that easier then others. Lets say you’re not a member of CoW (there are a few out there, right?) and you pick up WAR and start randomly playing. How interested are you going to be playing a game where no one talks. This means you can’t ask advice for your class. You can’t easily see guild recruitment messages, you can’t ask someone ‘hey have you seen so and so? I have no idea where I’m going here..’ — you COULD ask these things in says, tells, or in a group, or on the scenario channel, but not out wandering around. 

No one talks. Even in the scenarios I’ve been doing, I rarely see any messages at all except maybe ‘hold this place! Work some defense!’ or other brief messages along those lines. There’s just no public channels for people.

Since plenty of other sites talk about how Mythic is ‘on the ball’ about fixing any and all issues that come along (ie: experience boosts for PvE, for low population servers, bug fixes etc) how long will it be before they notice their game has no welcoming community for the new player. This WILL be a turn off for people. 

Put yourself in the place of someone completely new. It’s a lot different when you start the game in a prearranged guild, or are playing with friends. Not everyone plays the same and some times it takes a bit to get warmed up. The game is so dang lonely at times, you’re left wondering if you’re playing a different version of the game then everyone else and these characters running around are not characters at all but some form of elaborate bot. 

I’m a huge advocate of community being key to any mmo. How much better would it be if folks could put out a “hey I need some help at this PQ” or “Hey we’re getting our asses handed to us in keeping this keep, can we get some help” and actually being able to bond with people outside of their own guild. How are you even supposed to know what sort of player a person is unless you stumble into a group with them and give them more then a second glance as you’re doing a scenario or taking a keep?

Worried about the amount of spam? Well there’s already LOTS of spam out there already and we’ve all found ways to deal with it. Seeing general chatter spam is a lot better then seeing nothing at all.